Officiates Role in Your Ceremony

Your Pastor, Reverend, Rabbi or if you plan on having a family member perform your ceremony (from now on I will call them the officiates) play a major roll in your ceremony. The person directing you to say your vows pulls the entire ceremony together.

Many venues offer an in house wedding planner. It is very important to keep in mind they do not replace the importance of what your officiate plays in making your ceremony run smoothly.

With the economy in the state it is we are seeing more and more brides choosing not to have the officiate not being present during the rehearsal, hoping to save a few bucks. Yes, you can save money but big mistake. Just don’t do it, you they need to know how the wedding procession is going to go. They need to know whom is walking with whom down the isle, when any music will be played, lighting of the candles, ect. They will not know unless you have the take part in the rehearsal. They have preformed many ceremonies and can offer a lot of advice and direction.

If you do have a planner for your wedding they should be working with the venue, officiate, musicians, carriage driver, and the wedding party. The clue here is communicate with each other. Everyone has a job to do and everyone wants to do make your day special. Your officiate along with your other vendors can take a lot of stress out of your day by helping everyone in the wedding party do what they should be doing and make sure your special day goes without a hitch.

Another point you need to keep in mind, if you plan on having a family member or friend perform the ceremony you will need to check with your local and state marriage licensing regulations on how this is to be handled, each state can be different. We have heard of many brides that thought they were legally married to find out later the paper were not signed and recorded properly.

Here is a link to help you find out the marriage-license-laws in your state.
http://www.weddingvendors.com/marriage-license-laws/

Take the stress out of your rehearsal and ceremony and include your officiate.